He didn’t get to say any of that because Sam took that moment to punch the Latvian general in the face.
Jansons didn’t quite fall over, but the attack was so unexpected he didn’t do much of anything else either. Sam, who was much more fit, younger and about a half a head taller didn’t have any trouble holding up Jansons and reaching into his jacket, extracting a handgun Ed didn’t realize the general was carrying.
“Sam, Jesus, what are you doing?” Ed asked.
“Something’s wrong,” Sam said.
“Yeah, no kidding something’s wrong, you just caused an international incident. General…”
“Trust me for a minute, Ed.” Sam pushed the gun against the Latvian’s temple. “You got a key to that door?”
“Sergeant, I really…”
“I can hit you a lot harder, Valdis. Do you want me to hit you harder?”
“Yes, I have a key.”
He handed over the entire key ring, which Sam tossed to Ed.
“Go have a look at the room,” Sam said. “And then we’d better find a way out of here.”
“I had a way out of here, It was on a nice chartered jet.”
“I don’t think so. I think we’re about to be guests of the State, whether we want to be or not.”
“Sam, I don’t know what I might have done to offend you,” the general said, “but…”
“Just be quiet. Go sit down. Ed, do what you have to.”
Ed fiddled with the keys until he found the two that looked like they might fit in the door. The second one did. He opened it, tried very hard to pretend the diplomatic nightmare currently underway behind him wasn’t happening, and stepped in.
The office on the other side was unlike any other part of the facility, in that it looked neither clean nor staged. It was a room that was important enough to be preserved, but the reason for that preservation wasn’t entirely clear, other than if, for instance, one was interested in preserving a crime scene.
It was dingy, hardwood and Formica and pile rug, with no windows, one chalkboard, and one old-fashioned reel-to-reel recording device. The walls were covered in graffiti.
Ed recognized the equation that made up the majority of what was scribbled on the walls. The words written beside the equation were all in Latvian, and he could only read one word of Latvian. It was a word he was there specifically to look for: dadzums. It meant multitude, and it was on the wall too.
The Latvian incident and the events at Project Algernon were definitely connected.
Ed went to the desk. The graffiti at Algernon had been in a conference room, so there was nothing but the stuff on the walls to go over. This was a proper office, with papers and folders and files.
Most prominent, a stack of log books in the center of the desk. Ed flipped through the first one for long enough to decide it was probably important, without being clear on precisely what the information inside of it meant.
He went down to the last book in the stack, which was bound differently, opened it, and discovered a journal of some sort.
He was going to need someone to translate at least two different languages, and someone else who understood the math. The second thing was going to be harder: he still hadn’t found anyone who could make sense of the Algie equation.
“Are you happy?” Sam asked, from the other room.
“I’m satisfied.”
In the corner was an old knapsack with clothing rolled up inside. Ed examined the contents long enough to conclude nothing in it was interesting, dumped the clothes on the floor, and tossed the books in the bag. Then he took some more pictures.
“All right,” he said, returning to Sam and the general, “you want to tell me what’s going on with you now?”
“Instinct.”
“You gotta give me more than that, Sam.”
“Something’s not right with him.”
General Jansons started laughing.
“It’s really not a big deal,” he said. “It’s an honor to be punched in the face by someone such as the legendary Sergeant Corning.”
“Oh, cut it out,” Sam said.
Jansons laughed more, and it was just a little too extra, the kind of off-normal that Ed used to pride himself on being able to catch. But he had been focused on the telescope, not the people. Maybe Sam really was picking up something he wasn’t.
Then the laughter stopped, and Jansons became dead-serious.
It was eerie.
“You know what we want, Sam,” he said. “Whether it’s today or next month, we will have it.”
“What’s that, General Jansons?” Ed asked. “Sam? What’s he talking about.”
“He wants Annie, Ed. This is about her. Isn’t it?”
“So much more than just your little friend. She is just the beginning.”
“Right,” Sam said.
For the first time in a very long while, Ed didn’t understand what was going on, at all. It was like the other people in the room had been having an entirely separate conversation the whole time, in secret. That conversation had somehow led to violence.
“Are we alone?” Sam asked.
“On the planet?” Jansons asked.
“In the building.”
“Yes, but that is all. You will help us achieve what we wish, Sam Corning.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening here,” Ed said.
Sam laughed.
“That’s a new experience for you, I bet. Ed, I think we’ve been captives since I landed. We just didn’t know it.”
“Not captives!” Jansons said. “Guests.”
“Guests who can’t leave?” Ed asked.
“We would prefer it if you chose to stay of your own volition, but that does not appear to be feasible. This has been a surprise.”
“You’re not that charming,” Sam said.
Jansons looked at Ed.
“It was not necessarily you I expected to convince, Sam. Edgar, how are you feeling today?”
Sam looked at Ed. Ed looked at Sam.
“Ed?” Sam asked.
“I have no idea what he’s talking about.”
“I can tell,” Jansons said. “That is very interesting indeed. There is more to you than I knew.”
He turned back to Sam.
“What will we do now, Sergeant Corning? Will you keep an army general hostage in his own country? I can tell you now that this will not go well.”
“No, I won’t. And I don’t think you’re a general.”
And then Sam Corning shot General Valdis Jansons in the head.
11
Cabin in the Woods
Caller: ...what I’m saying is, are we sure the zombies went away at all?
RR: I get what you’re saying. But we have plenty of evidence, don’t we? We have people standing up and saying “I was a Sorrow Falls zombie.” We have to account for that, don’t we?
Caller: I’m not saying they’re lying, but I’m not saying they aren’t lying. I’m saying, I’ve seen ‘em since. Lots of people have.
RR: Caller, let me start by saying I agree with you, but just to play devil’s advocate, lots of people have seen lots of things, especially lately. You should see my ratings!
Caller: (laughs)
RR: But there have been a lot of things, haven’t there? The vampires in Akron. The UFO’s in Arizona… did you hear about the cruise ship? Just last week, ship came into port and every last person on that ship swore they were nearly capsized by a sea monster. A sea monster! These are crazy times, caller, but that doesn’t mean any of it’s real. Right? Right?
Caller: And I’m saying it’s all real. And we all know who’s to blame for it, don’t we? Can we say? Can we say it on the air, or will she make us disappear?
transcript, the Ruby Rubin Midnight Hour
It took most of the afternoon to convince Oona and Laura that Dobbs hadn’t suffered some kind of head injury, and there really was a person named Violet Jones who at one time played an important role in their live
s. Yes, that role was brief, and yes, the use of the word person was generous, but it was still true.
The signal Laura showed Dobbs once they let him inside helped.
“It’s the same thing as before, huh?” he said.
“Maybe,” Laura said.
“Except your directionality is different.”
“Yeah, the ship’s not in a field any more,’ Oona said.
“That’s not really what I mean. Can I sit?”
Laura got out of his way, and Oona didn’t even say boo about it. Not long ago, she was threatening to put a bullet in him for breathing on their equipment. In fairness, she threatened to do that for a lot of reasons, and nobody took her all that seriously most of the time.
Dobbs tapped a few commands in, and the dish moved from its skyward position down to the rows of neighbors.
“The drop-off is much more extreme,” he said. “Before, when we stopped pointing the array at the ship, we could still pick up the signal in pretty much all directions. We still can, but from the ground it looks a lot more residual. You see what I’m saying?”
“Hey, I got an idea,” Oona said.
She walked to the edge of the roof and leaned over for a look at their nearest neighbor.
“Point it here,” she said.
Dobbs positioned the dish at the singled-out camper.
“Looks the same,” he said. “Not zero, but pretty close.”
“That isn’t always the case,” Laura said.
“HEY CHARLIE,” Oona shouted, “TURN DOWN THAT DAMN MUSIC ALREADY.”
‘Charlie’ emerged from the side of his trailer and proceeded to have a loud argument with Oona that included an immoderately large selection of curses and recommendations regarding impossible bodily functions. Then he stormed inside, and turned up the volume of his radio to show Oona what ‘too loud’ really sounded like.
“Honestly, babe, you could have just asked him to turn his radio up,” Laura said.
“Yeah, but that was way more fun,” Oona said. “How’s it look now, Dobbs?”
“It spiked. It’s still not at the zombie army orders level, but it did reach a new plateau.”
“It’s underneath the radio signal,” Laura said. “That’s what we think.”
“Yes,” Dobbs said. “Which means it might not be the spaceship that’s doing it.”
“I’m not with you there,” Oona said.
“The ship made zombies out of regular people… somehow, right? It talked to them on the frequency we’re seeing here. But it didn’t need help with the transmission. It didn’t have to hop on an existing radio transmission. Assuming this is a malicious signal, whoever is doing it isn’t using the same tech.”
“Or, maybe the ship’s local range is only a few miles, and has to hijack a satellite if it’s further off,” Oona said.
“You made a good point,” Laura said, to Dobbs. “About whether or not it’s malicious. We don’t know what it’s doing. It might not be doing anything.”
“That’s what we thought before we had zombies,” Oona said. “How about we assume the worst and go from there?”
Once everyone agreed the signal was something interesting and potentially incredibly dangerous, Dobbs spent a little while asking the women pointed questions about their time on the night of The Incident and the days immediately following, in order to shine light on the obvious gaps in their recollection.
What he remembered quite clearly now, was how they had helped Violet get back to her farmhouse in the woods, and return her space capsule to the root cellar. Violet expressed an interest in owning a trailer like the one Oona and Laura had, in case she ever felt like traveling some real distances, and then coordinated the creation of their aliases with the movement of a couple million dollars to their new bank account. Dobbs was in the room for basically all of that, and it was the most awesome display of power he’d ever seen—kind of amazing considering what he’d already witnessed.
All of what he recalled matched the reality Oona and Laura had been living ever since, including the part where Violet told them they would all, unfortunately, have to forget about her once their business was concluded.
That conversation went a lot better two years ago than the retelling of it did. Neither Laura nor Oona were particularly comfortable with the notion that their heads had been messed with. Thus, while the decision to head from Maine to Sorrow Falls was ostensibly driven by a need to find out more about the signal from the nearest person (Violet) who might have answers, they were really going mostly so the women could ask for their memories back.
Or something. Dobbs was pretty sure it didn’t really work like that. He also didn’t know how he’d gotten his memories back, and still had no idea who the two men who visited him were or what they did to him. Maybe there were aliens all over the place.
The drive south provided Dobbs with a little free time to explore their new state-of-the-art camper, with its ridiculously extensive arsenal. He continued to not know anything about guns aside from which end was supposed to point where, but liked to think he’d already survived the night where a more thorough understanding would end up being important.
It felt bigger than the last one. It was, but only a little bigger, since trailers—and he had a lot of experience with trailers—had an upper limit. The working kitchen was nicer than anything he’d encountered previously, and he thought the toilet was exceptional. Mostly, though, he was glad to see that the women had abandoned their fondness for Mad Max cosplay, they’d stopped keeping their urine in jars, and they’d cut down a lot on the hardcore porn posters. On the other hand, it looked like they were conducting experiments on the best way to make bombs, and they still appeared to enjoy making their own bullets and cigarettes.
The most awkward part of the trip was when they reached Sorrow Falls itself.
“Are you telling me there’s a road up here that’s not on any maps?” Oona asked, from behind the wheel. The familiar farmland smell was kicking them all in the teeth, and they’d already forced two opposite lane pickup trucks and a tractor off the road on their way up the hill. Dobbs didn’t remember ever having to get used to the manure smell, but obviously he had.
“Yeah, it’s a mile up and then a little dogleg down a dirt road,” Dobbs said, from the passenger seat.
They were on it before Oona had a chance to complain again. She saw the opening, and turned, and then they were on a tree-lined path with thick forest on both sides. She slowed the rig down. Outside of the woods, it was already twilight. Inside, it felt like it was night-time. Dobbs thought that was probably just a function of the thick forest, but was willing to consider alien influence a factor.
“On the night,” he said, “we were safe down here. The alien in the spaceship couldn’t even see this place.
“Damn creepy,” Oona said.
Laura popped up from in back.
“It’s really quiet,” she said. “Stop for a sec.”
Oona did, then lowered her window.
“You’re right, that ain’t normal,” Oona said. “Woods come with howls and bug chirps and what-not.”
She continued to creep forward, her window down. Dobbs lowered his too.
Then he started to hear something.
“Well there’s something moving out there,” he said.
“People?” Laura asked.
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Zombies?” Oona asked.
“Nothing people-sized, let’s say. Smaller.”
The road had an elbow bend ahead. It looked like someone was standing at it.
“That’s a people-sized person right there,” Oona said.
It was a man in a suit, and he didn’t appear to be interested in letting them get any further. That blocking them might mean getting run down didn’t appear to be an active concern.
“All right, person or zombie?” Oona said, possibly not joking.
“A little of both,” Dobbs said. “Stop this thing, let me go talk to him.
”
“Yeah? When did you get so brave?”
“It’s not bravery, I know who that is.”
They stopped. Dobbs jumped out and walked in front of the hood.
“Todd, right?” Dobbs said. “Unless Violet’s driving right now. Is that Violet in there?”
Todd looked him up and down a couple of times, and then turned and walked into the woods. This led to a burst of activity on the other side of the tree line on both sides. It was a little like the sound made when a flock of birds take off all at once from the same tree, except louder and lower to the ground.
That’s probably not good, Dobbs thought.
He climbed back into the camper.
“I think we passed the test,” he said. “C’mon, the house is just up there.”
It was another quarter of a mile to the farmhouse. There was an old hatchback parked next to it, but no sign of Oona and Laura’s old camper.
Oona parked next to the car.
“Now what?” she asked. “Do we ring the bell, or are there some magic words we gotta say first?”
“I don’t think there’s a bell.”
Dobbs jumped out again, and headed up the stairs to the porch.
“Hey,” Laura said, from the roof. “The signal’s about the same here too.”
“I guess that’s good news.”
He knocked on the door, and waited. Then he knocked again.
Then he noticed the door was unlocked, and wondered what the rules were for letting yourself into a space alien’s home.
He poked his head inside.
“Violet?” he shouted.
Nothing.
“Hey Laura,” he said, “does that old setup still have the compass built into it?”
“Sure does.”
“What direction is it facing right now?”
“Uh… north-northwest. Pretty much. Why?”
“The arrow isn’t just spinning around like crazy?”
The Frequency of Aliens Page 16
